Here's chapter three. There are two easter eggs in this chapter. If you can find them please comment ;)

Chapter 3: A New Home

We travelled for five days through the forest. Since we had just become vampires our powers would increase quickly after a few weeks. The first two to three weeks were the maturing age of vampires. Amelia was a very powerful fledgling so she was already at the peak of rank E when she was born. I am the progenitor of the vampires so I am even stronger, being at the peak of rank D. The ranks are divided into four stages. They are early, middle, late and peak. Most normal vampires would be somewhere in rank F. But after the two week maturity period the vampire would gain in strength. No vampire would still be rank F after this period. The normal vampires would be somewhere in rank E. Amelia had gone from peak of rank E to middle rank D. I had gone from peak of rank D to the early stage of rank C. Since I was the progenitor I would also gain in strength a bit faster. But it was only at this maturity period that vampires would gain strength this quickly.

We had just gotten out of the forest. About a hundred meters in front of us there was a road. We walked over to the road. It was the middle of the night, the moon hung high in the sky. It really was very uncomfortable in the daytime, so we preferred to travel at night. We decided to follow this road to see where it would take us. The two of us weren’t very familiar with the geography of the country, since we had lived in a small village and farm for all our lives.

We had followed the road for a few hours, when we noticed a building a few hundred meters in front of us. We decided to see if we could stay there for the day, since the sun was about to rise. But we didn’t have any money and had basically nothing to pay with, so we hoped they would be generous. If not, we could always just kill them, and then sleep.

We left the road and walked quickly over to the building. When we came closer we noticed that it was a farm. Since it was a farm, the people living there should be getting up about now. We walked over to the door, and knocked. Soon the door opened and in our vision appeared an old man.

“What are you two doing here at this hour?” the man asked curiously.

“We have been travelling for many days now, and we are getting weary, so we were wondering if we could sleep here for the day?” I politely asked him, hoping for the best.

“You come to ask to sleep at this hour. The sun is coming up now, can’t you see?” he said with a neutral tone pointing to the sun. I replied

“Yes I know sir, but you see, my sister and I suffer from a rare genetic illness. It is nothing dangerous, it just makes us very uncomfortable in this sunlight, and our skin will get sunburned easily, so we hoped to get cover from the sun.”

He stared at me with surprise in his eyes. Then he had an understanding expression and looked at us with pity. Must be hard to live out of the sun, he thought.

“If that’s the case, then hurry up and come inside. I have a guest room where you can stay for the day. Come let me show you.” He said as he turned around and waved for us to follow. We followed him into the house. We arrived in a cosy kitchen with a table. Around the table there were three chairs. Right after, we came up some stairs and he stopped in front of a door. He showed us inside and said “You can stay in here for the night, ehm, I mean day. If you need anything just ask.” Then he turned around and left. The room had a queen size bed in the middle. On the sides there were two night tables. On the other side of the room, up against the wooden walls, there was a desk, complete with a chair.

I walked over to window and closed the blinds. Then I took my clothes off and lied down on the bed, under the blanket. I gestured for Amelia to do the same. She quickly undressed as well and went to bed. We slept until night time.

As the sun went down we woke up.

“Isaac, I’m hungry. Should we feed on the habitants of this farm?” Amelia asked. I looked at her for a while, then I nodded. I was starting to feel the hunger swell up as well. We didn’t drink that much blood these past days. I walked out of the room, down the stairs. In the kitchen there were three people sitting. The man, a woman, and young girl, around sixteen years old.

“Ah, you two are up. Would you like to have something to eat?” he asked me with his kind voice, gesturing to the soup he was sipping on. I looked at him as the hunger was swelling up inside my body.

“Yes, we are feeling rather hungry, if you don’t mind.” I said as I walked towards his daughter. I grabbed her neck and lifted her up. She screamed and her father got off his chair about shout at me, when I sank my teeth into her throat. I felt blissful as her virgin blood flowed down my throat. Her father was just standing there looking in shock, as Amelia had grabbed his wife and drained her dry. Suddenly two thumps sounded out as the two lifeless bodies fell down to the floor. I looked at him as I said

“Thanks for the meal, it was very delicious.”

I formed a claw in my hand as I swiped it towards his throat. A moment later his head fell to the floor, and his body collapsed. Neither of us wanted to drink his blood, since he was old and a bit ugly. I looked around if I could find any money. I took all the money I could find, then we left.

We kept travelling like this for two weeks, sometimes staying at farms or inns, sometimes just finding cover somewhere. We usually killed the people that gave us shelter, for their blood. After two weeks of travelling, we came upon another forest. We had decided to stay in a forest for a bit longer, since it was a bit troublesome to stay in a village or small town, since it was too noticeable when people died. We walked into the forest, and started to look for a clearing somewhere. We didn’t want to live in a cave, so we had decided to build a small hut somewhere, deep in the forest. After wandering for a while we came upon a clearing that had a river flowing through it. We decided to build our hut here. We didn’t have many tools, but we had taken some from the various people we killed. We chopped down a few trees and split them into two pieces. After a few hours of work we had a nice and cosy hut, complete with furniture and two beds.

For a human it would have taken many days of hard work to build this, but for vampires it only took a few hours. This wasn’t only because we had superior strength and speed, but because all vampires had an innate talent for everything craftsmanship and art. Vampires valued beauty and art highly.

When we were finished the sun was about to come up, so went unto our new home and went to sleep. Not much had happened when we were here. We had dug a hole beneath the hut, which we decided to use as the prison for our human cattle. But we didn’t have any human cattle, so I decided that we should go out of the forest and capture a few humans.

The next day at sunset we set out at full speed. When we had arrived at the forest we hadn’t wen in full speed, which is why it took so long, but now that we were going full speed it didn’t take long to get out. At our current strength out speed was really fantastic.

We arrived at the road near the forest. There weren’t many travellers out night, but there was a village nearby. We rushed over to the village, and arrived there after about thirty minutes. There weren’t many people outside, at this time of night. We decided to go to one of the houses at the outskirts of the village. We arrived at a house. I opened the door and walked in. I listened to the surroundings in silence, and determined that there were four people in the house. Amelia went get two of them and I went for the other two. The two I went for were sleeping in the same bed. A married couple. They were middle aged. I made sure they were knocked out cold, and threw them in a sack. I then went over to Amelia, who also just finished. We then rushed out of the village, not letting anyone see us. We had sneaked into the village, kidnapped four people, and rushed out again, unnoticed.

Ever since becoming a vampire both Amelia and I had looked at humans differently. When becoming a vampire, not only the body would change. The mind would also undergo a transformation. You would get a better memory, be able to read faster, think faster. But for some vampires, you would also undergo a change of attitude. At first when I underwent the transformation I didn’t want to kill anyone one, but as soon as the hunger swelled up my rationality went away. As the hunger grew stronger my mind deteriorated, to the point where I almost couldn’t think anymore. My sanity had been broken. After it had broken, my mind would be rebuilt, by the blood. This caused me to have an innate indifference to humans. But only a few vampires would have to go through this. In Amelia’s case, her mind was changed right away. As soon as she transformed, she already had that innate indifference to humans. But this was even rarer. Not even I could control this factor. It was all based on luck.

After kidnapping the villagers we went back home at full speed. We had spent almost three hours on this trip. When we got home we put them into the underground cattle prison. We were in the room waiting for them to wake up.

After standing in silence for two hours, they finally began waking up. When everyone was awake I stepped forwards.

“We have taken you away from your village. You shall now live on as cattle. You are going to exist solely for the purpose of us drinking your blood. You are going to stay in this underground prison until you die. When die you will be replaced of course.”

I looked at them as I said in a serious tone. They had a look of fear on them as they looked back at me.

“Now go rest.” As I said this I looked them in the eyes. Then all of a sudden they fell asleep. This was one of the abilities I had as vampire. Hypnosis! Amelia didn’t have this though, because at the time I embraced her, I didn’t have this power. I wasn’t even sure if I could give it to her even if I did have it back then. I had unlocked it after the maturing period. It seems like you would unlock more powers as you age. Maybe Amelia would also get this power one day.

As for how I could be certain that she didn’t have it, I could sense it. You see, when a vampire embraces a mortal that new turned vampire will be bound to his sire. As long as the bound exists the sire can feel everything about the subordinate. Both its location and power. Therefore the embraced one, won’t be able to hide his power, until released.

After hypnotizing we jumped out of the underground prison. There was no ladder or anything to get out with, you had jump. And this was no distance a normal mortal could jump, but around fifteen meters high. Even Amelia and I had to put some effort in to jump such a distance.

3rd person perspective

Thus they spent two years in our little hut. In these two years the cattle they kidnapped had long died. They wouldn’t kill them as they fed, but there was still a lot of blood loss. After a few months they would die. Some also got sick, so they were killed. After a cattle died, they naturally would go out of the forest to grab some new humans. Thus they spent two years living in peace.

But everything wasn’t as peaceful outside the forest at first. The army of Kalderon had sent a rank D squadron to investigate the disappearance of a rank E squadron that was sent to investigate the massacre of a small village in the outskirts of the Kingdom of Kalderon. When they had made it to the village, they had only seen a desolate ground, littered with the ashes of the dead and burned down houses. They soon found tracks from a group of twenty men, going into the forest. They concluded that this was most likely the squadron they were looking for.

They followed the tracks for five hours. The sight that they met caused them quite the surprise. In front of them was a cave. In front of the cave there was a fenced of area, with a few animal corpses littering the ground. It looked like they had starved to death, as there wasn’t any food in this small area, and they had already eaten all the grass. In the entrance way of the cave, there was a small wooden door.

They decided to carefully enter the cave. The inside of the cave was empty. There were only some old dried up bloodstains. It looked like someone had been killed here, but they didn’t think it was the missing squadron as there wasn’t enough blood.

They exited the cave again, to look for more clues. They tried following the tracks again, only to see that it led to boulder a few meters away. The commander of the rank D squadron ordered his men to push the boulder away. With a lot of effort they managed to move it. When they moved the boulder, they noticed a cave behind it. Out of the cave came a foul, stinking smell. It caused a few soldiers to even puke. They had never smelled anything so foul before!

After the boulder was removed they went into the cave. The sight they saw shook their hearts. There was blood everywhere. The ground was littered with twenty corpses. Some of the corpses weren’t even complete, some looked like they had been eaten. At this horrifying sight more of the soldiers wanted to puke. Some ran out immediately, while the commander just stood there, in complete shock. After standing for what seemed like an eternity, they finally left. The commander ordered his mages to burn the corpses and collapse the cave. This was their final burial.

After finishing up, they quickly left. They had no idea what could cause this. Generally a monster wasn’t intelligent enough to seal prisoners up. They decided that they would hurry back to the town of Fenlai, and let the higher ups deal with it. They never wanted to think about that horrifying sight again. They just wanted to forget.

When the Lord Commander of the city heard of the slaughter, he felt shock pierce his heart. He had never had to deal with something so gruesome. The area he presided over was generally very peaceful. There didn’t exist any all-powerful monsters here. He absolutely no idea who could have done such a thing.

In the end he had guessed that it might be some new death cult or something, or perhaps just some powerful psychopath who revelled in killing. He decided that he would sent a team of B rank knights to clear out the forest.

Thus one month later, there appeared a small group of eight B rank knights. These knights were the elite of this outskirt area. This prefecture of the Kingdom of Kalderon was located against the ocean. It was named after its capital city, Fenlai. This team of B rank knights were the strongest force present in the prefecture, they are under the direct command of the Lord Commander of Fenlai. The Lord Commander is also the ruler of the prefecture. A prefecture is either ruled by a Lord, or a Lord Commander. If the lord is the commander of his own forces, then he is called a Lord Commander. Is someone else works under him as the commander, then he is just a Lord.

The team of knights went directly to the cave where the missing team was found. They found nothing of interest except the corpses of the animals, and a few blood stains. After they had scoured the area, they started carefully searching the forest. They spent two months looking all around the forest, but they never found any cult, or even a monster above E rank. Thus they concluded that whatever had slaughtered the missing squadron, had long left.

After reporting the matter back to the Lord Commander, he decided to drop the matter and instead report it to the royal capital. He had concluded that he most likely wouldn’t be able to find the culprits. They might even have left the prefecture completely. Thus this matter was shoved under the carpet.

End of chapter 3